Men and machines
By: by Stuart Chase ; illustrated by W.T. Murch.
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 1937
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 354
Subjects: Machinery in the workplace.; Machinery -- History.; Inventions.
Description: From Chapter 1...

Certain philosophers hold that machinery is enslaving us. I am not a machine tender, but first and last I encounter a good many mechanisms in a day's march, particularly when that day is spent in a city so large and so complicated that it could never have been built by human muscle. Before analyzing the extent of serfdom in others, it might be well to determine how far I am myself a slave.

The first thing that I hear in the morning is a machine —a patented alarm clock. It calls and I obey. But if I do not feel like obeying, I touch its back, and it relapses humbly into silence. Thus we bully each other, with the clock normally leading by a wide margin. (Once, however, I threw a clock out of the window, and it never bullied anyone again.)
Table of contents: label: I
pagenum: 1
title: Slaves and Philosophers; label: II
pagenum: 22
title: The Anatomy of Machinery; label: III
pagenum: 42
title: Machines of the Ancients; label: IV
pagenum: 64
title: From James Watt to the Mechanical Man; label: V
pagenum: 85
title: From James Watt to the Mechanical Man (Continued); label: VI
pagenum: 108
title: The Wall of Steel; label: VII
pagenum: 124
title: Under the Lifting Smoke; label: VIII
pagenum: 142
title: Robots; label: IX
pagenum: 169
title: Skills; label: X
pagenum: 183
title: Saving Labour; label: XI
pagenum: 204
title: Jobs; label: XII
pagenum: 218
title: The Flood of Goods; label: XIII
pagenum: 240
title: Skyscrapers; label: XIV
pagenum: 253
title: Playgrounds; label: XV
pagenum: 266
title: One Dead Level; label: XVI
pagenum: 286
title: Leaning Towers; label: XVII
pagenum: 307
title: The Two-Hour War; label: XVIII
pagenum: 318
title: The Balance Sheet; label: XIX
pagenum: 337
title: A Billion Wild Horses; title: Selected Bibliography
pagenum: 349; title: Index
pagenum: 351